Where Lane and Al went wrong

Update: Talking to reporters on the field following the Senior Bowl, Lane Kiffin sidestepped questions regarding his status with the Raiders.

“I’m not going to comment on that. That’s got nothing to do with this game, these guys’ last game here, and I’m real proud of the way they played and competed,” Kiffin said. “It was a fun week.”

Asked if he will be coaching the Raiders in the fall, Kiffin said, “I hope so.”

There are a lot of different ways Lane Kiffin could have shot down reports regarding his demise in the eyes of Al Davis, and reasonable people can agree that saying “I’m not going to comment on anything that transpired in the last three weeks” is not one of them.

Nor is coaching the Senior Bowl in a black Under Armour windbreaker, with the name “Raiders” nowhere in sight. The rest of the staff is adorned in Raiders gear.

It reminds me of the time Jon Gruden showed up to his season-ending press conference the day after a playoff loss to New England in a maroon polo shirt instead of his usual Raiders garb.

Not long afterward, he was on his way to Tampa Bay.

During Saturday’s Senior Bowl broadcast, field reporter Charles Davis said Kiffin told him he didn’t want to comment on rumors that Davis asked for his resignation, essentially the same thing he said the day before.

“He said he didn’t want to comment on anything that happened in the last three weeks to a month, but what I do want to focus on is this game today,” Davis reported Kiffin as saying. “We focused on these kids all week long and coaching them, we’re going to focus on them today in this game. We don’t want to cheat them at all.”

NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock said he believed the Raiders and Kiffin were negotiating a settlement of his contract, the end result being Oakland would be the first team since the Minnesota Vikings in 1984 (Les Steckel) and 1985 (Bud Grant) to have consecutive coaches who lasted a single season.

A year ago, Kiffin was hailed by Davis as superior to Jon Gruden, glossing over the fact that his first choice was actually Steve Sarkisian, the co-offensive coordinator along with Kiffin at USC. Davis raved about Kiffin’s grasp of the total game and his value as a personnel man because of his background as recruiting coordinator.

It wasn’t just Davis’ refusal to part with Rob Ryan that fractured the relationship, although that was part of it.

The fact is, it became apparent as the season went on that Kiffin and Davis differ philsophically, and many of the things Kiffin did and said no doubt rubbed the boss the wrong way.

Davis believes he has stocked the Raiders with enough talent to be consistent winners.

“We’ve got good players. What I worry about is injuries,” Davis said during a training camp press conference.

Kiffin, looking at the 15-49 record upon his arrival, never bought it. He admitted making final cuts wasn’t all that difficult because the Raiders didn’t have enough good players to make it difficult.

When the Raiders finished the season by facing Green Bay, Indianapolis, Jacksonville and Denver, Kiffin, when assessing how his team had held together, said, it was difficult “when you’re not playing anybody like yourself.”

While perhaps not meant as a jab at Davis’ acquisition of talent, go ahead and assume Davis felt that way.

The week the Raiders played the Colts, Kiffin talked with admiration about a roster stocked with the type of players Davis wouldn’t want.

“Their linebackers are 5-11. They’ve got a 5-9 safety, a 6-foot defensive end,” Kiffin said. “They get a lot of people later in rounds that other people don’t take because of size or because of what they evaluate. They see what other people don’t. In that system, tackling is one of the first things you evaluate, and you can see it. They take people, because they’re really good players, and they tackle real well.”

Davis made it clear during training camp that dealing Randy Moss was Kiffin’s idea.

“If Lane felt that was best for the team I was going to do it,” Davis said. “And we did it. We didn’t get near what we should have. Randy Moss, if he’s well, can still play, in my opinion. Our coaches didn’t think so.”

It couldn’t have set well with Davis when Kiffin blamed him for breeding the culture which Moss wanted no part of.

“Randy had made it very clear to me, his statement was, ‘Coach, this has nothing to do with you. I have already heard great things about what you are doing there already, but I am not going to play for that organization, and I don’t want any part of it. I don’t like the way I have been treated there,’ ” Kiffin told Minnesota writers on a conference call.

“It was out of my control. Randy wasn’t going to play here and he made it very clear, so it was a direction that this organization needed to go because he wasn’t happy and he wasn’t going to play here for whatever reason, the things that happened before I got here.”

Getting rid of Moss was a big part in another Kiffin belief not held by Davis _ team chemistry.

Kiffin made repeated references over the course of the season to “cleaning out the locker room” and ridding it of bad influences.

Davis is on record as saying he doesn’t believe in team chemistry.

Where Kiffin stood on the drafting of JaMarcus Russell is not clear. Leading up to the draft, I was told Kiffin preferred Brady Quinn, but I never heard it from Kiffin himself and misinformation is rampant where the draft is concerned.

When the season was over, Kiffin was no longer a Davis prodigy. He was a 4-12 coach, the same as Bill Callahan and Norv Turner in their final seasons. Kiffin was just two games better than Art Shell who had no right to ask for his own choice as defensive coordinator.

To make matters worse in Davis’ eyes, Kiffin did little to refute rumors which connected him to college jobs at Arkansas, Michigan and UCLA.

A Contra Costa Times poll asked readers “As a Raiders fan who would you rather get rid of, Al Davis or Lane Kiffin?

At last check, Davis had 1,112 votes to be shown the door and Kiffin 31.

When Kiffin accepted the job, he made it clear on several occasions it was on the condition that certain things were in place. He never specified what those things were, but implied it had to do with the makeup of the roster and coaching staff.

Hope he got that in writing.

Jerry McDonald - NFL Writer

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Exhibit 1 -In the first quarter of the Raiders victory over KC, Fluffy 24 posted some negative nonsense about the Raiders chances in the game before letting Raider Nation know that he was off to church.

IN THE FIRST QUARTER!!!

Exhibit2 – Three weeks ago you announced that if Kiff was “out”, Fluffy24 was also “out.”

Be a man and honor your word.

Just Win Baby.

Reverend Run

CopenhagenFan Says:
January 27th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
“I’m with Huff24…I tried to “joust” with him a couple of times on the side of Al Davis. I give Huff24 his props now.”

Sucker!

My Adidas

M

The Raiders should be thinking along a singular line of reasoning, if such is possible, and that is the development of one JaMarcus Russell. He gets ten times the money of the head coach and he is to be the franchise. Whatever it takes to find the right HC to allow him to flourish is fine by me. A year under their belt with Cable’s supervision, the O-line can begin to get it together better all the time. An Air Coryell offense via Al Saunders, what’s the problem? Does anyone hereabouts think that JaMarcus was greatly benefitted by the four-headed QB monster of the past season?
Oh, just read that the Feds are going to be giving rebate money to everyone in May, just about the right amount to buy, for free as it were, season tickets.

Huff24

Reverend Run – Aaawwww. Did I strike a nerve? Maybe I am the Dumbest Blog Poster in America but that still didn’t stop you from reading my posts. Obviously you had enough itch in you to take the time to read the dumbest post EVER! I am happy to have made you dumber than you already are. Thank you.

CopenhagenFan

M…good point. But what’s the use of changing the system to an Al Saunders scheme when he’s just going to get fired after one or two years anyway?

Al should be the coach!

RaiderHarv ?? How long?

Lets just hire a new coach every year until we get it right….thats what most of you are suggesting…..right?

CopenhagenFan

Al’s GOON….Kiffin did not fail. It was a 3 year plan.

La Milicia Negra

CopenhagenFan…

Aren’t you a US citizen, just living in DK? or am I totally out of bounds ?

ignorant post of the day..
_____________________________________________________

# FIRE KIFFIN Says:
January 27th, 2008 at 12:59 pm

Copenhagen – With all due respect, stick to handball.

Huff24

Big Al’s Goon – Time for more conventional moves? The only way we’re going to get that is by replacing the guy who makes the moves. Al Davis.

Big AL’s GOON

Gnary,

If Denny want’s the job you can bet your life we’ll be better than this past year under the Kiffster. Four freak’in wins and people are defending his crap. And if Denny doesn’t want the job there are plenty of others that will. Besides AL can always go back and look up under another rock and find another Kiffster.

CopenhagenFan

La Milica…yeah I’m a US Citizen. But one’s citizenship has absolutely no bearing on intelligence or the validity of an opinion. I don’t even watch handball, but Fire Kiffin has no legitimate documentation to refute my argumentation so he resorts to petty insults and telling me I’m not a Raider fan.

http://none Bo Jackson’s Hip

Hey everybody…….We should win the Super Bowl every year….we have the best players at every position….when we don’t succeed it is the dumbass coaches fault….at this rate we need to start firing coaches after the first four games…we could have 4 coaches in one year.

http://none Bob Marley

Damn…like Scottish said, it´s looking like civil war in here, let´s all put down the guns for awhile, I´m sure we´ll get to the bottom of this soon enough.

Copenhagen…It´s Sid Gillman, not Sid Luckman.

http://none BOBBY COMER

Oakglenn: In response to your post 641 wher you state a couple of times that you are not going to allow the media to destroy the Raiders fanbase.

Oakglenn “I an not going to allow it.”

My question is, what are YOU going to do about it?

Go Raiders

Vicky

It takes at least 3 years to get a winning program. So Al Davis has lost it if he fires Kiffin and replaces him Saunders, Lofton, Green or whoever incl. himself

Huff24

Fire Kiffin – Is that all you got? Your biggest arguement is that I am not a Raiders fan? Oh no…Fire Kiffin of all people said I am not a Raiders fan. You mention things I have said without a single post to back it up? Now you’re just spitting what you “think” I said. You’re saying that I said something in the 1st quarter of the first game while you’ve been Fire Kiffin from the start? So….You were ready to fire the Head Coach before he ever had a chance? You must not be a Raider fan. Ooohhh…that was creative wasn’t it?

CopenhagenFan

Al’s Goon..strangely enough I felt that we were lucky to win 4 games this year. We even beat two teams in our own division!

http://oakglenn Oakglenn

Vicky, the Air Coryell offense that Saunders runs would require a great set of offensive coaches to bring the receivers (especially a new corp of receivers) up to snuff. If you are gonna bring in Al Saunders to run the O, you would HAVE to have a great receivers coach to teach the timing and routes. Someone, I don’t know, maybe someone like James Lofton, if he were available.

Edward T

LMN

Fire Kiffin may have noticed a stuck up kid with no chance for succeding in todays NFL
Maybe he just used his gut for his observation and decided he was not a good fit.
To say he is ignorant after the last 72 hours is like telling a lottery winner that picked the correct numbers, was stupid to pick those numbers.

Hobs Gnarly

Big Al,

That wasn’t my question to you are you fine with someone who thinks the Raiders coaching situation is treacherous? It must be this great friend of Al’s whom you so dearly love might not be gung ho for him as you are. Besides maybe Denny has some sense in him, after all he’s turned Al down how many times? I am sure he wants control of his staff as well, sorry Al you can’t hire my assistants!

CopenhagenFan

Marley…I got my Sid’s mixed up!

thanks for the help. Was that an official “marley” I got there or a friendly helping hand?

Huff24

Fire Kiffin – BTW, If I was unable to finish a game because I was off to Church…thats because my love goes to the one and only true God. You spend too much time worshipping a person whom you believe to be a God. Good luck with that. I’d say, “See you in Hell” but it looks like you’ll be there alone.

http://oakglenn Oakglenn

Bobby, watch and learn

CopenhagenFan

I think that SoulPatrol should be our coach.

Vicky

OakGlenn, I totally agree with you. i don’t think we have the personnel ready for Al Saunders offense i.e. speedy receivers, good pass blocking O-Line, receivers who can catch balls. the jury is still out on the QB. I am not saying AL Saunders will do wonders and i think it is a bad move to replace Kiffin at this stage and bring another new system for JR.

Big AL’s GOON

Huff,

You’re kidding right? Get rid of AL? AL is the guy who hired Mr.USC assistant coach that so many here have a man crush on for absolutely nothing. AL has done way more to help than hurt the Raiders. AL stays Kiffster goes. Raiders continuing moving forward towards consistent winning. We can’t stay with a coach that has proven he isn’t ready. Many here admitted that Kiffin was learning how to be a head coach last year. What a horrible statement to admit. Let him go to some other team and learn how to coach. There are plenty of teams in the NFL that have never won and will never win because winning is not the most important thing to them. Winning is everything to AL. Kiffin can go learn elsewhere.

http://FixtheboldJerry.com Terrapin

Vicky – I skimmed through that article from MSNBC and whoever wrote doesn’t know what the hell they are talking about.

If all some of you see in Kiffin is a 4-12 product then you are surely blind.

http://none Bob Marley

Copenhagen..lol, there´s no such thing. common mistake.

http://none FIRE KIFFIN

Edward T – Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

You the man.

Just Win Baby.

M

The passion of the fans here is what makes this Nation unlike any other. The calling out of so and so by so and so is a bit detracting but hey, that’s passion. Marley and Oakglenn seem to settle y’all down with reasoned thoughts. Very nice.

http://none rich_gannons_love_child

in response to your question “M”, my answer is yes. kiffin, or any other head coach, should should have total control over who his coaches and players are. i understand this is not SOP in oaktown. al davis should only be signing checks. his constant meddling and underminding of his head coaches sends a clear messege to assitant coach as well as players: the HC is not in control. this is what causes discord.

this a complete mess. if kiffin stays, he’ll have no control and no say in anything. players and coaches, especially those who are “al’s boys”, will get away with whatever they want. no one will be held accountable. that is except for the guy with no power: lane kiffin. he is a no-win situation, just like the unlucky sap will replaces him.

this is how al’s rouge leadership hurts the organization. all reports of al’s reputation, true or untrue, eliminate A LOT of great players and coaches from even considering oakland as a new home. as long as AD is around, we’ll have to tolerate other teams tablescraps in terms of free agents and coaches.

http://none BOBBY COMER

Oakgeek: I’m waiting…

Edward T

Don’t let Fluff push you around Fire Kiffin. He is always playing both sides to a fence garbage and then tells us he was correct. Anybody can be do that like a politician, or he’ll get out his encyclopedia info and prove how smart he is.

Huff24

Big Al’s GOON – Do you realize that Al Davis is the one hiring these guys and giving these guys 3 year contracts only to turn around and not give them 3 years? What does that say about Al Davis’ mind? Does he not even trust in his own decision? Does he forget why he hired him? Does he change his mind? What does that do for a franchise in dire need of consistency? I believe in Kiffin more because I have agreed with most decisions he has made. Lets be honest, without Kiffin we wouldn’t have Tom Cable, Tom Rathman and Greg Knapp.

We wouldn’t have the #6 Rushing attack and a better prepared Jamarcus Russell for next year. Fargas would have never been great this year. This team would have been Art Shell #2 this year and we would have been lucky to win 2 games. We would have had another poor draft. We wouldn’t have had Zack Miller, Oren O’Neal, Justin Griffith, Cooper Carlisle, Jeremy Newberry, a new Robert Gallery. Kiffin is getting rid of alot of bad players. Some players he brings are temporary players but they are needed until this team can be turned around and thats alot of work.

Why would Al Davis hire Kiffin and say great things about him? If you trust AD so much, you would trust AD’s decision making. Period. What will AD do now? Hire Sarkisian? Will you then blame Sarkisian for being a bad coach?

Big AL’s GOON

Coppenhagen,

Where is it written that it takes 3 years to have winning program? It didn’t take Gruden 3 years to have a winning program. It didn’t take the Pittsburgh coach Tomlin 3 years. Sean Payton didn’t need 3 years. etc., etc.,etc. The list goes on and on of coaches in their first year doing well. That 3 year plan crap is just that crap. If you can coach you can coach.

M

Thanks for the response Gannon’s_Love _Child. I figured that you would give a well thought out response and you did.

Edward T

Bobby
OAK is like GOD on this blog he is always right so bow done and listen to his almighty.

Hobs Gnarly

Did you see Daunte trying to line up with the fins again?

Huff24

Edward T – I’m sorry. Who are you again? I don’t recall seeing you until now. Now you have something to say? Please. Don’t kiss too much Fire Kiffin @$$ now. He’ll soon change his name to Fire Green and then maybe Fire Shell once again. After that…who knows? If we’re lucky, we just might be the first team to have 10 coaches in 10 straight years.

http://none BOBBY COMER

Oakgeek: You just explained how you were going to school me on how to keep Raider Nation together and all you have to say is that I’m gay?

Is that what you were referring to when you said “Watch and learn.”?

Go Raiders.

http://oakglenn Oakglenn

Hey Huff I think Edward T is Bobby Comers gay lover.

Hobs Gnarly

you know what I don’t get his why people who were in the “know” stated that Al listens but it’s up to that person to sell him the plan. Well, Kiff sells Al on trading Randy and now he is mad at him for what? Being fooled?

CopenhagenFan

GOON…there is no official rule that it takes 3 years to win. Kiffin was given a 3 year contract and the Raiders were the worst team in the league when he took over. I see 3 years as being reasonable.

You cite 3 coaches in your argument. Tomlin inherited a team that had just won the Super Bowl 2 years before and was coming off an down season because their QB was nearly killed and was screwed up the entire year.

Gruden took over a team built by Tony Dungy and pushed them over the edge to the Super Bowl. If Gruden is so great why did Al Davis fire him?

The list goes on and on? You only have ONE single example of a one year turnaround, Sean Payton. Is that all you got? Do your homework or stay out of the kitchen.

I think that Kiffin CAN coach. He showed that as he vastly improved the worst team in the league and made a disaster into a season where we were in most of the games, only to be thwarted by our Defense that gave up points on the ensuing drive after we took the lead in the 4th quarter on countless occassions. As the good coach he is, Kiffin tried to rid himself of the coordinator of the failure of a defense and is getting canned because of it.

CopenhagenFan

OAKGLENN…it seems as if Soul Patrol is gay. He has “gaydar” if he can identify them so well.

Huff24

Big Al’s GOON – As a matter of fact…it did take Gruden 3 years to build a winning team. Going 2 years at 8-8 is not a winning recrod. 9-7 would be a winning record. He went 12-4 in his 3rd year.

As far as Tomlin goes. He took over a winning team because the Head Coach retired. Most of the assitant coaches, including the Defensive Coordinator were mainstays so there was alot of consistency and chemistry left over the the past regime. A Winning Franchise.

I would agree with you about Sean Payton and the Saints. They were incredible in their first year. Did you notice they missed the playoffs this year? Not everything always pans out the way you expect.

http://oakglenn Oakglenn

Nice Cope

Raider Glory

Im tired of all the B.S. that goe’s on with the Raiders!! I really am!! Al Davis is really starting to make it a drag to be a Raider fan. But rest assured, I blame Lame Kiffin as well as AD!! They both leave a lot to be desired as owner and coach…….Any one who believes that Kiffin was not looking to get hired in Arkansas or UCLA is a fool. He wants no part of the Raiders!! Not anymore. It was always a short stop just to get some leverage!! But I am tired of defending Al Davis! And his STUPID decision making!! This entire organization has become a FARSE!! A real NFL laughing stock!!! HOW PATHETIC!!!!!

P.S. So, Who do you guys think will be our next COACH???? LOL!!

GO RAIDRS!!!!!

Huff24

Oakglenn – I’m going to have to agree with you on that one.

sloraider

Al sent the letter for resignation to the wrong coach, it should have been Ryan. the D sucked this season and the O improved and headed in the right direction. Al is thinking ass backwards.

http://none rich_gannons_love_child

i’m sure all this nonsense al has created will do wonders for his young franchise quarterback. a new HC, OC, QBC will set jruss back yet another year or two. it’s a good thing he was in training camp last year. oh wait……

i’ve always been a critic of al davis. there are some guys on here (bob marley, BHP, ect.) who have made me try to be objective in terms of AD. the fact that this story is even on the news wire gives it a little bit of truth, which in turn, completely destroys ANY objectivity i’ve tried to muster when speaking of al davis.